1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is devices which receive empty and full beverage containers for crushing in order to make scrap from the containers and to reduce the volume of the containers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Over the years, many crushing devices have been developed whose primary purpose have been to flatten and reduce for scrap tin cans and beverage containers. The inventor is aware of a number of these devices. However, the devices know to him have been rather complex, complicated devices and obviously expensive to construct. For example, Cassell, U.S. Pat. No. 1,598,364; Bruton, U.S. Pat. No. 1,766,327; and Mickler, U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,562 show crushing and can mangling devices using rather complicated machinery to shred and crush cans, especially the devices of the latter two patents, which obviously require very high strength precision-made teeth, all adding to the expense of the device and rendering the device potentially in need of frequent repairs. Other devices present extensive apparatus for crushing containers, such as shown in the patent to Pagdin, U.S. Pat. No. 3,749,004, wherein a plurality of pairs of opposing crushing rollers ranged in series receive the cans, the first to pierce and the second to crush. While the above devices do accomplish the job of crushing beverage containers and puncturing the beverage container if filled with liquid, yet the machines suffer from infirmities of cost of construction or reliability.
Accordingly, it would be useful to have a device adapted to crush beverage containers, and especially those containers which still have the liquid sealed within them, wherein means are provided at an economical cost to relieve the containers of their liquid and then to crush the containers in order to reduce the containers to scrap and reduce their volume. In addition, it would be useful to provide means to collect the liquid formerly interiorly to the containers. All should be done with a device which is reliable, which may be easily operated and constructed, and is economical in cost.